Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning masterpiece Spirited Away was Japan’s biggest-ever box office hit and a film that helped redefine the possibilities of animation for American audiences and a generation of new filmmakers.

Wandering through an abandoned carnival site, 10-year-old Chichiro is separated from her parents and stumbles into a dream-like spirit world where she is put to work in a bathhouse for the gods, a place where all kinds of nonhuman beings come to refresh, relax and recharge. Here she must find the inner strength to outsmart her captors and return to her family. Combining Japanese mythology with Through the Looking Glass whimsy, Spirited Away cemented Miyazaki’s reputation as an icon of inspired animation and wondrous, lyrical storytelling.

Studio Ghibli, founded in Tokyo in 1985 by animation directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, is one of the most successful and well-respected animation studios in the world. Cultivating a creative force of talented directors, animators, and storytellers under the revered brilliance of Miyazaki and Takahata, Studio Ghibli’s films have been praised for their originality, dazzling animation, and epic storytelling. The films have become a beloved part of Japanese popular culture and have garnered worldwide acclaim from audiences and critics alike.